Friday, October 31, 2014

FULL TEXT: Baltimore, January 21, 1866. – A most singular
coincidence in reference to the case of Mrs. Grinder, who was executed at
Pittsburg, on Friday last, for murder by poisoning, is the fact that one of her
victims, Mrs. Caruthers, is the same name of an entire family of Caruthers,
including father, mother, sons, and daughters, who were poisoned about fifty
years ago in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, by a young girl named Rachel Clark, a
domestic in the house of Mr. Caruthers.

If we are not mistaken, two, three, or more of the family
died. Andrew Caruthers, an eminent lawyer of Carlisle, who had a very large
practice and died a few years ago, it may be recollected, was very lame and
much deformed, the muscles and sinews of his arms, hands, and legs being
contracted and drawn up to a painful degree. This was the result of the
poisoning referred to, from which he never recovered. It was alleged that
jealousy caused the youthful murderess, who was represented as very handsome,
to perpetrate the crime.

I have often seen notices in the public prints since the
execution of Mrs. Surratt, and now, in commenting on that of Mrs. Grinder, that
only a certain number of women have been hung in this country. The case of
Rachel Clark, how ever, was always overlooked. She was publicly executed in
Carlisle some fifty years ago [1816]. Her body was got possession of by Dr. Geddis, of
Newville, Pa., who had the bones put on wires and set up in a box in his
office, where there remained for many years, and possibly may yet be seen in the
same town.

The general outlines of what I have here narrated are true,
and will be sustained by reference to the history of the court proceedings in
Carlisle. The whole case was a most singular and romantic one.

FULL TEXT: Chicago, Oct. 3. – One of the most remarkable
cases of youthful depravity on record came up before Justice Lyon Tuesday
morning.

One of the defendants was the little girl Minnie
Kratzenberg, at 3100 Wentworth avenue, who put “rough on rats” into the food of
her family with the deliberate intention of causing the death of her relatives.
Her companion in trouble was Mrs. Margaret E. Snyder, charged with having instigated
her to commit the deed. Minnie is a well-developed maiden of of 13 years, with
dark features, black hair and black eyes. In these lurk the spirit of intense
hatred, which glowed out at the objects of her displeasure as she stood in the
dock before the justice. She cooly admitted every charge made against her,
professing not the slightest remorse for what she did. John Deitz, step-brother
to Minnie, testified to the family having eaten of the beefsteak which had been
poisoned by the girl Friday night. He himself had been taken ill, and the
mother now lies in a critical condition. Lizzie, the sister of Minnie, said
that she made some soup Sunday and took a little to her mother, who was lying
ill from the effects of the previous poisoning. When she came back to the
kitchen she examined the bowl of soup more closely, and to her horror
discovered that it was permeated with rat poison.

“What’s the matter with the soup!” she asked.

“I didn’t put anything in it,” said Minnie, guiltily.

Dr. Lynch attended the family and found Mrs. Kratzenberg
suffering great agony. He discovered symptoms of arsenical poisoning and
administered proper relief. Minnie was called upon to say what she desired.

“This woman,” she said, indicating Mrs. Snyder, “told me to
do it. I went to her house and said that my step-brother, John, had been
scolding me. She said:’Why the devil don’t you poison him?’ I asked her how to
do it. She told me to put carbolic acid in the milk, but said afterward that he
would be apt to smell it. She then told me to put some ‘rough on rats’ on the
beefsteak.”

“And you did it, did you?”

“Yes, sir.”

The young girl then went on to tell in the most heartless
manner how she had administered the poison, and how the first dose failed to
operate fatally.

“I went to Mrs. Snyder,” she said, “and told her that it
didn’t work. She told me to try another dose, and I went home and put a
quarter of a teaspoonful in the soup.”

“You wanted to poison in his plate alone then, and not in
the food which the whole family was to eat?”

The girl could give no reason. The only cause for Minnie’s
strange conduct that could be given was a scolding which had been administered
to her by her step-brother six weeks before on her neglect to prepare supper
for him when the rest of the family had gone away to a picnic. On this occasion
Minnie ran away to Mrs. Snyder’s house where she stayed awhile. On this
occasion a slight quarrel arose between the woman and Deitz, but nothing
serious resulted at the time.

Mrs. Snyder unequivocally denied every allegation of the
girl. She said that she never spoke on the subject of her, and that she never
spoke on the subject to her, and that the girl had not been in her house more
than twice without being accompanied by her sister. She had no reason, she
said, to instill such a devilish idea into the mind of a child. Justice Lyon
could do nothing under the circumstances but hold the two in bonds of $1,500 to
the criminal court.

No one seemed seemed to know just why the girl had made this
strange and murderous attempt upon the lives of her relatives. Several inclined
to the theory that it was pure depravity which instigated her, others that she
was a subject for a court of insanity. Justice Lyon thought that her brain was
peculiarly susceptible to impression, and that she was mentally defective.

[“A Youthful Borgia – She Calmly Admits She Tried To Kill
The Family – Minnie Kratzenberg, Aged 13, Confesses to Poisoning Her Mother,
Brother and Sisters for Some Trifling Grievance – She Accuses a Woman of Instigating
Her to the Crime – Both Held to the Criminal Court.” The Alton Telegraph (Oh.),
Oct. 3, 1888, p. 2]

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 14): Bixby, Okla., Oct. 14. – The
townspeople are talking today of the peculiar mentality of Winona Sprague
[sic], the girl who used to “jerk” sodas and sell cigarets at the corner drug
store six years ago.

Winona is now Mrs. Leroy Green and is in jail at Little
Rock, Ark., where she has confessed to two of the southwest’s most gruesome
crimes – the murders of her husband’s parents – plotted to slay her mate.

Much of Winona’s past life is told by William E. Pinion,
city marshal of Bixby, who has served the law enforcement department of this
little town many years.

~ Worked in Store ~

Winona lived with her father, a carpenter, according to
Pinion. The father did odd jobs while the girl worked, first in the drug store,
then in the office of Jessie Spurgeon, a teaming contractor. She was acquainted
with virtually everybody in town and, Pinion says, she was a narcotics user.

She married a Tulsa newspaper man named Moore. Moore met her
when he was sent to Bixby by his paper and later took her to Commerce, near
Miami, the marshal said. Still later, the two were accused of taking a car that
did not belong to them and driving it to Utah. They were brought back to
Oklahoma but not prosecuted, Pinion said.

Winona was known as a girl who would take desperate chances.
Pinion said, but no one thought she would go so far as to murder any one. But
she has confessed she did and had plotted to kill another.

[“Bixby Folks Are Puzzled By Winona’s Murder Case – She Was
Known to Be Desperate But They Didn’t Think She Would Slay,” Muskogee Daily
Democrat (Ok.), Oct. 16, 1924, p. 8]

“Who ever heard of a woman being electrocuted or hanged in
Arkansas?” she demands whenever the death penalty is mentioned to her.

Furthermore she is not remorseful.

“I’m not sorry for my deeds, she repeats again and again.

“I planned both murders, thinking them all out thoroughly in
advance. Now that I have admitted everything, I am willing to meet whatever
fate awaits me.”

~ Hoots at Insanity Plea. ~

Her attorneys are building up an insanity defense. Their
alienists have examined Winona.

They report she is suffering from “paresis of the brain in
active form.” They explain this makes the victim irresponsible, though there
may be no outward appearance of insanity.

But Winona hoots at the idea.

Her husband, LeRoy H. Green, a railroad man, who up until
her confession stood jointly accused with her, has turned against her.

He has notified his lawyers to bring divorce action.

~ Husband Pities Her. ~

“No, I don’t hate her,” the husband says. “I pity her.” She
is crazy.

“But I am through with her. I don’t see how she ever could
have killed my father and my mother. They always were good to us.”

Winona says she does feel sorry for her husband.

J. R. Green, Winona’s father-in-law, a railroad switchman,
was shot and killed on the night of Aug. 16 while returning home from work.

~ Quarreled Over Money. ~

Winona, who had just come in from Pueblo, Colo., assisted
the widow in the funeral arrangements and in settling up Green’s affairs.

Then she and the elder Mrs. Green left for Oklahoma. En
route the mother-in-law was slain.

Winona and her husband were arrested here. After hours of
questioning Winona broke down. The murder charge against her husband was
dismissed.

Mrs. Green contends her mother-in-law owed her money. She
decided first to murder the father-in-law, believing his wife would pay her
back once he was gone.

Then after quarreling with the widow, Winona shot her, too.

[“Girl Who Killed Two Thinks Her Sex Will Save Her From
Death,” syndicated (NEA), Nov. 1, 1924, p. 1]

***

FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 14): Like some terrible tale by Poe
or a blood-drenched page from medieval history, the case of lovely little Mrs.
Winona Green, self-confessed double murderess, has fascinated almost every
alienist in America.

Why did Mrs. Green, formerly a calm, angelic-faced choir-girl,
lie in wait for her father-in-law and fire upon him, leaving him to writhe out
his life upon the ground?

Why did she simulate grief-stricken surprise when told by
her mother-in-law of the strange tragedy, only to kill the elder woman herself,
later, with supreme cunning?

Was it some hidden impulse of revenge, jealousy, cupidity or
irrational fury which prompted her to turn assassin twice, or did the slight
strain of savage, outlaw, Indian blood in her veins, curiously pulsating up
into frenzy, actuate her admitted and dreadful deeds?

One of the weirdest commentaries on young Mrs. Green’s own
attitude, toward herself is found in her poise, which is tinged with sheer
indifference. Although facing trial on the charge of first degree murder of the
wealthy Little Rock, Ark., property owner and his wife, their daughter-in-law
seems chiefly concerned with the ravages that cell life may inflict upon her
striking prettiness.

She summed up this astonishing feeling in the crisp words, “I
wonder when I’ll see the inside of a beauty parlor again. Perhaps never. Thank
goodness, my hair is naturally curly. That helps some. No, I never bobbed it. I
was afraid it wouldn’t by my style. And Roy was so fond of my long curls?”

The “Roy” in question is Mrs. Green’s young and respected
husband, Le Roy Green, who has been on the brink of a brain collapse ever since
the chameleon-like Winona showed her true colors after the two slayings.

It was solely to exonerate him, Mrs. Green asserted, that
she made a clean breast of the crimes of which she was accused. For Roy had
been arrested and, tormented with the thought that harm might come to him, his
wife, with cool candor, preferred to submit to her ordeal rather than chance
one for him.

Psychologists agree that never in their experience of
emotional “throwbacks” to primitive instincts has so amazing a “complex” been
brought to light. As to Mrs. Green’s status, there is a variety of opinions.
Some, including her heart-broken husband, attribute to her “brain waves.”

It will be on this plea that his own attorney (Green is
still loyal to her) will attempt to save her. But others think differently of
the matter. The police advance the theory that she is “stone-cold sane.” She
admits that, although when a child she used to dash dishes on tile floor in
fits of temper, she is perfectly normal.

But there remain still other theories which might account
for Mrs. Green’s almost insoluble character. She does not deny that her racial
background includes a dash of Indian – a tribe that many years ago was abused,
hounded and annoyed. Can it be that this trace of the naturally rebellious
outlaw motivated her violence against persons for whom she had conceived a
grievance? Only a trained expert, after minute scrutiny of the evidence, can say.

The details of the two deaths almost surpass any novel of
mystery and horror ever written. Here, in brief, is what occurred, according to
the “chameleon choir-girl’s” first confession:

She lent Mrs. Lena Green, one of the victims, $4,000 at
Christmas 1923, and on several occasions asked her to return the loan. The
elder woman put her off. Meanwhile Winona and her husband had left Little Rock,
for Pueblo, Col., where he got a job as a switchman.

The young wife later went back to Little Rock, after telling
LeRoy that she was going to Kansas City for a brief visit. Arrived at her real
destination, she picked her way to a short cut to his home, which J. R. Green,
her father-in-law, was in the habit of taking.

Very soon he appeared and was accosted by the girl, who
demanded $1,000, after explaining that his wife owed her a larger sum. Green
refused to accede, with the curt remark, “I don’t believe a word of it,” and,
turning on his heel, was about to walk away when a bullet struck him in the
side. He fell to the ground.

Several other shots were fired into his head. The pistol
was hidden in a nearby sewer, where it was found subsequently, by detectives.
The magazine was empty, with one shell in the chamber.

The confession states that Little Mrs. Green returned to the
railroad station and waited until the Sunshine Special pulled in. Next she
telephoned her mother-in-law and announced that she had just arrived.

Incoherent with sorrow, Mrs. Green stammered out the news
of her husband’s death. Mrs. Winona Green hastened to the home, where she tried
to “console” the grieving woman.

Two days later Le Roy Green arrived post-haste and, with his
wife, attended the funeral. From that time to the day of his mother’s
disappearance the couple made their home with the widow.

Certain highlights of what ensued, as revealed in the
confession, make unparalleled reading. Winona claims that she and Lena Green one
day visited a bank, where each cashed draughts. She claims that her “in-law”
had bought two railroad tickets to Kansas City and that she persuaded Winona to
accompany her on the trip.

Once aboard the train, Lena Green changed her plans and woke
the girl near Claremore, Okla., telling her to dress and get off at that town
with her. after a plate of waffles, the two left for Tulsa. Arriving there,
Lena raised the issue of the $4,000, complaining because she was so often
reminded of it.

Becoming frightened, Winona managed to secretly buy a
pawnshop pistol and cartridges. The women then rented a small motor car and
started for a country ride. “Mother” Green wanted to shoot her son’s wife a house
she owned. Out of Tulsa, through Red Fork and onto a dim mountain road, the
pair shotin the hired auto.

The pivotal figure at this juncture of events proved to be
Major James Pitcock, head of the Little Rock detective force. It was he who
wrung the extraordinary confession from Winona Green and he who had found Lena
Green’s body propped up against a stone in the wooded tract where she had been
slain.

An ominously circling buzzard led the searching party to the
spot – in itself an incident which no drama can match for suspense and utter
horror. Identification, at that time, proved to be impossible.

But with the arrest of Winona Green and her admission of the
two slayings, a flood of light was cast on the situation. What might have
constituted merely a technical, legal puzzle was turned into a psychological
one of the most intense difficulty.

The beautiful girl, with the faint tinge of outlaw blood and
the unshaken mask of composure on her face, has proved an enigma which it will
take a great mind to solve.

Cheerful, animated, yet with a paradoxical dignity, she has
laughed and chatted with reporters through the bars of her cell. For more
worried over her looks than her soul, she vows she is “ready for any
punishment.”

With a visage as bright as that of a child, the pretty
Winona consented to be interviewed shortly after her incarceration. Her voice
was cool and flute-like; her bearing that of a young matron “receiving” at an
afternoon tea.

“No, I have no actual regrets over the killing of ‘Mother
Green,” she said. “I consider it self-defense, no matter what others may think
of it. I do feel quite sorry, however, that I was goaded into taking Dad’s
life. Was I crazy at the time? I guess I must have been. Otherwise I don’t
think I’d have done it.

“But, then, I have a terrible temper. No, indeed, I am not
troubled with bad dreams or nightmares, which are just exaggerated versions of
bad dreams. I sleep as soundly as could be every night, and my appetite? It is
just splendid!

“The food here is fine, contrasted with what ‘Mother’ Green
used to give us, I assure you. One reason why I hated her so was because she
was so stingy. She would walk two miles to save one cent on a pound of sugar.
She saved and pinched whenever possible.

“Then she hated me on account of Roy. He was her only
child, and she was jealous of his love for me.”

“But,” she adds with a winning smile, “please don’t look at
my fingernails. They must be a sight, it’s so long since I had a manicure.” The
lock of one who has been deprived of beauty parlors comes wistfully into her
eyes, and while the alienists shake their heads, their “subject” thinks only of
the refreshing joys of a shampoo, leaving “the dead past to bury its dead.”

[“‘Outlaw Blood Made This Choir-Girl A Demon! - Alienists
See in Her Self- Confessed Slaying of Two Relatives a ‘Throwback’ to Weird ‘
Indian Tribal Vengeance,” syndicated, Springfield Republican (Mo.), Dec. 28,
1924, p. ?]

***

***

FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 14): Little Rock, Ark ., Jan 19. –
Mrs. Winona Green, convicted here today of the murder of her father-in-law, J.
R. Green will be the first woman in the history of the state to face
electrocution if a recommendation for mercy accompanying verdict is not heeded.

FULL TEXT (Article 5 of 14): Little Rock, Ark., Jan. 28. –
Mrs. Winona Green today was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of J.
R. Green, her father-in-law, after Judge Wade had overruled a motion for new
trial filed in her behalf. The defense was granted sixty days in which to file
its transcript of appeal to the state supreme court.

FULL TEXT (Article 6 of 14): Memphis, Tenn., April 13. –
Mrs. Winona Green, under life sentence for the killing of her husband’s
parents, who escaped from the county jail at Little Rock, Ark., Saturday night,
was captured Sunday walking along the Missouri Pacific railroad tracks near the
Union station here.

Little Rock officers arrived late Sunday and started back to
the Arkansas capital by automobile with their prisoner. Confirmation of the
report of Mrs. Green’s capture here was withheld until the arrival of the
Arkansas officers.

Mrs. Green’s re-arrest was due to over-cautiousness on her
part. She alighted from a Missouri Pacific train in the Union station here
Sunday morning, but fearing that she would be arrested if she went out through
the main entrance of the station she strolled back into the yards.

Patrolman N. A. English saw her and approached to ask her
why she was walking on the tracks. Believing he knew who she was, the woman
disclosed her identity to him.

Mrs. Green, who confessed the slaying of Mr. and Mrs. Robert
Green, her husband’s parents, and who pleaded insanity, sawed through three
iron shutters at the county jail in Little Rock Saturday night and dropped
twenty feet to the ground.

She declared that she rodein a taxicab from Little Rock to Kensett, Ark., and later boarded a
train for Memphis.

1926 – FULL TEXT (Article 7 of 14): Little Rock, June 16. –
Beyond discovery of footprints indicating someone had passed through a field
near the prison, no trace had been found today of Mrs. Winona Green, convicted
murderess, and two companions who escaped from the State farm near Norman at
Jacksonville, Ark., last night.

Mrs. Green was serving a life term for the murder of her
father-in-law, J. R. Green, here in 1924. On her return to Little Rock she also
told of murdering her mother-in-law near Picher, Ok., and the body of the elder
Mrs. Green was found in a wooded section according to directions given by her.
She was sentenced to life imprisonment on the first charge.

She escaped from the Puluski county jail early in 1925 but
was recaptured in Memphis. She was then transferred to the State farm in
Jacksonville.

1931 – FULL TEXT (Article 8 of 14): Little Rock – Because of
objections of the board of trustees to her admission to the Booneville
Tuberculosis sanitorium. Winona Green, under life sentence for the murder of
her father-in-law and charged with the murder of her mother-in-law, who was
given an indefinite furlough by Governor Parnell, recently, has entered a
sanitorium in California it was learned Thursday.

The Booneville institution board, it was reported, objected
to admitting prison inmates.

1935 – FULL TEXT (Article 9 of 14): Acting Governor Lee
Cazort revoked Tuesday an indefinite furlough granted about five hours ago to
Mrs. H. F. Jones, the former Winona Green, and ordered her returned to prison
where she faces a life sentence for the 1925 slaying of Robert Green, her
father-in-law.

Cazort’s action followed her arrest here Monday night for
investigation in connection with an alleged attempt to cash a forged check.

1940 – FULL TEXT (Article 10 of 14):Little Rock, Ark., April 8. – Governor
Bailey’s office announced today that Winona Green, under life sentence for
murder, had been given a 12-months extension of a furlough granted April 26,
1939.

Last year’s furlough was granted on certification of prison
officials that she was ill and required treatment not available in the
penitentiary. She was released to go to the home of a sister in Oklahoma.

Mrs. Green was convicted here in the 1924 slaying of her
father-in-law, Robert Green.

1948 – FULL TEXT (Article 11 of 14): Little Rock, Jan. 13 –
One of Arkansas’ most notorious women criminals, Winona Green Sprigg, will be
returned to the state women’s prison to complete serving a life term for
murder.

Winona has been on continuous furlough since 1939 because of
her poor health. State Parole Officer W. P. Ball said she had been ordered back
to prison because of her arrest at Muskogee, Okla., on multiple charges of
issuing and cashing “fictitious checks.”

As Winona Green, she was sentenced to life in 1925 on
conviction of first degree murder in the fatal shooting of her father-in-law,
Robert Green, retired North Little Rock railroad employe.

1954 – FULL TEXT (Article 12 of 14): Salinas, Calif., March
15 – Gene Freeman, arrested Saturday on an Oklahoma murder charge, took the
stand today as the first defense witness in the murder trial of his wife,
accused of killing rancher Harold Jonassen.

Freeman testified he knew nothing about the shooting until
he read about it in the paper December 5. Jonassen, a 78-year-old wealthy and
retired rancher, was shot November 25.

Mrs. Winnie Ola Freeman, known as the “cat woman” because
she kept 25 pets, said Jonassen was shot accidentally while they were rabbit
hunting.

The Freemans were accused in Miami, Okla., last Saturday of
killing Robert S. Wilkinson in 1946. Police Chief Arch C. Masterson said the
accusation was based on circumstantial evidence.

FULL TEXT (Article 13 of14): Salinas, Calif., March 17. – The prosecutor asked the death penalty
in the murder trial of Mrs. Willie Ola Freeman, but defense attorneys insisted
she shot an elderly rancher accidentally and hid his body only because she
feared being sent back to an Arkansas prison.

The case of the 53-year-old so-called “cat woman” – a
parolee from a 1925 life murder sentence in Arkansas – was expected to go to
the jury of eight women and four men about noon tomorrow.

In closing arguments today, District Attorney Burr Scott
termed the shooting of Harold Jonassen, 78, last November 25 “willful,
deliberate, premeditated murder.” He asked the death penalty, charging Mrs.
Freeman forged checks totaling $734 in Jonassen’s name and “was out to take the
old man for all she could get.”

Defense lawyers Burt Talcott and Paul Hamm, however,
insisted Mrs. Freeman’s story of shooting Jonassen accidentally while they
were target shooting with a .22 rifle was true. The woman, they said, was afraid
no one would believe her and in fear of being returned to prison, hid the old
man’s body, and told no one.

Jonassen’s body, concealed in a clump of brush, wasn’t
found until Mrs. Freeman, who had been picked up on check charges, led officers
to the scene nine days after the shooting.

“She declared herself persecuted by the apparitions of her victims; and strangely enough sought refuge at the
graves to which she had sent them.” [“Remarkable Female Criminals – The
Poisoners of the Present Century. Second Part” (pp. 213 ff.). The Dublin
University Magazine, Volume 29, Feb.1847, 222]

When
died she displayed most unseemly joy—even the gravedigger, who attended the
funeral repast, was shocked at it. “I have been,” he said naively, “to a great
many funeral repasts, but never saw one so merry.”

She
created some indignation were also exited by the proofthat she had herself written and caused
epitaphs to be placed on the graves of her victims: –

“Here
lies the body of Anne Marie Florine Segard, who died the 28th of February,
1848, aged ten months.”

“Here
lies the body of Anne Marie Florine Marchal, who died the 28th of
February, 1848, aged eight years. This child, notwithstanding her tender years,
displayed rare qualities of mind; her obedience and modesty caused her death to
be deeply regretted by her mother, who has erected this monument to her
memory.”

“Here
lies the body of Jean-Baptiste Segard, aged thirty-seven. He was a good
husband, an affectionate father, and a Christian devoted to the poor. To her
dear and virtuous husband his grateful wife erects this monument. May he repose
in peace.”

Before she became a murderess, she loved to prepare corpses
for burial. Eventually she satisfied her mortician mania by supplying the
corpses herself, about a dozen of them eventually. She loved to watch her
victims suffer from the arsenic she gave them. Her confession was a remarkable
revelation of human depravity. She had become obsessed with the liking for
scenes of moral agony, and her mania went even farther, making her revel in
coming into contact with dead bodies, which she loved to handle and prepare for
burial. In the early stages of this monomania she tried to satisfy her cravings
of bereavement, and by assisting in bathing and dressing the remains. These
natural deaths came too infrequently to satisfy her, however, so she
desperately started out to manufacture funerals by supplying the dead bodies.

She was only 14 at time of her apprehension. Ella had a
passion for attending funerals. When a lull came about, offering no
opportunities for her favorite form of amusement, she solved the problem by
poisoning a number of children in series. She remarked with respect to the
corpse one of her victims, Louisa Stormer who she said “made the prettiest
corpse ever put under New York soil.”

The execution of this order met with unexpected difficulties. When the
commission had the graves of the men who had died within the last few weeks
opened, it became plain that the inscription on the graves had been falsified.
The corpses of such persons as had born buried scarcely a month were quite
decomposed. It was discovered that the crosses had been interchanged, obviously
with a view to frustrating the judicial investigation. Consequently long and
troublesome inquiries were necessary for the identification of any desired
graves.

No one could have guessed that during her tenure at a
Massachusetts hospital the amiable "Jolly Jane" was morbidly obsessed
with autopsies, or that she conducted her own after-hours experiments on
patients, deriving sexual satisfaction in their slow, agonizing deaths from
poison. (Harold Schechter, Fatal)

“Serial killer Mary McKnight, who between 1887 and 1903
murdered between 12 and 18 people with strychnine poisoning, including her
whole family, just because she liked to go to funerals. Her crime spree
stretched from Alpena to Saginaw.” [Ellen Creager, “’Blood on the Mitten’
recalls Michigan true crime tales,” Detroit Free Press (Mi.), Sep. 17, 2016]

In her flat her detectives say apparently the most cherished
personal belonging was a big photograph of a well filled graveyard. They do not
think it was preserved because of departed relatives, but simply because of the
owner’s mental twist. This morbid characteristic is revealed likewise in the
stories told the police by at least one undertaker in the small Illinois towns
where Mrs. Vermilya lived prior to her residence in Chicago.

“I never saw such a woman for being anxious to work around
dead bodies,” said E. M. Block, an undertaker at Barrington, in which town Mrs.
Vermilya resided during their first marriage. “She actually seemed to enjoy it.
I never employed her, but she went around and said she was working for me. at
every death she would hear of it almost as soon as I, and wouldn’t be far
behind me at the house to take care of the body. More than that, the woman
seemed to glory in thinking about prospective deaths.”

When visiting a fabric store to purchase black material to
make a dress for her fourth husband, Joseph Guszkowski’s funeral, the clerk
offered her condolences and asked Tillie when her husband died. "My husband's," said Tillie.
"When did he die?" “Ten
days from now,”Tillie'snext stop was at an undertaker's, where
she bought the cheapest coffin in the place and had it delivered to the
basement of the tenement. (Alan Hynd, Murder, Mayhem, And Mystery: An Album Of American Crime, 1958, p.
360)

“It’s too bad that I have such bad luck with husbands. I
hope the next one lasts longer.” (Alan Hynd, Murder, Mayhem, And Mystery: An Album Of American Crime, 1958, p.
360)

“Sympathy for the seemingly grief-stricken widow governed
Hauptrief’s actions. He gave her the solace of a home and the comforts of a
cheerful fireside. Hauptrief heard of his wife’s confession to killing her
first husband only a few days ago, as his condition had been too serious.
‘Annie’s grief at Court’s burial was natural and unassumed, as far as I could
tell,’ Hauptrief said. ‘Clad in black, and with her young eyes rod from long
weeping, my heart was filled with sympathy for her as she became
near-hysterical when they begun throwing dirt into the grave.’ At four other
funerals the woman was a living picture of a mother overcome with life’s
sorrows.”

Nurse – The only
motive which the French police now hold in the mysterious poisoning of six
persons by Antoinette Scierri, a nurse, is that she liked to see her victims’
death struggles. Although small sums of money were taken in several instances,
it is believed that this was not the basic death motive. The nurse made wreaths
for the graves of her victims and showed tender care during their last moments.1925 – Della
Sorenson – Dannenborg, Nebraska, USA

“I had feelings which would steal over me at times forcing
me to destroy and kill. I felt funny and happy. I like to attend funerals.”

Nurse
– Mrs. Gifford had a passion for death-beds and funerals of which she missed
only one in 18 years. But just as youths sometimes become so overenthusiastic
about running to fires that they finally get to setting some themselves, this
death-bed fan, it is charged, could
not resist the temptation, when anyone started to withdraw from the edge of the
grave to just push him in with a little arsenic. She took command of the
funerals too and liked to see everything done right, even going so far as to
pay for the embalming of one of her victims.1931 – Rose Veres – Detroit, Michigan, USA

It had been the custom each time one of her roomers died to
have photographs made of the funeral showing her giving the corpse a final
embrace.

“Marie Becker was
known to attend the funerals of her victims and to gesticulate wildly her grief
over their passing. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in
prison.” [Jay Robert Nash, Look For the
Woman, M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1981.]

“A weeping Christa Lehmann visited her dead friend’s family
and told how the two bonbons she ate made her violently ill Saturday night. But
she told the police a different story. After the funeral Christa threw a
shovelful of earth on the dead woman’s grave and was taken into custody.”

One of her gruesome jests which led ultimately to police
inquiries was voiced at a reception following her marriage last October to
76-year-old Ernest Wilson. A friend asked what she was going to do with a large
number of cakes and sandwiches left over. “Keep them for the funeral,” she
replied. Wilson laughed with the rest – and lived just 15 days more. Then it
was recalled the widow of Windy Nook made another of her jokes at the
registrar’s office, where she had been married and had then returned to record
her husbands’ deaths. “There should be a discount for me,” she quipped.

“Marybeth Tinning loves the attention she receives after her
third child died of meningitis as a baby. To keep receiving that attention she
quietly kills her other eight children over a span of years. She's seen as a
woman with a series of unfortunate events, until she goes one step too far by
smothering an adopted child.” [Wikipedia, “Deadly Women Episodes”]

“She fainted during the first burial; during another, she was so overwhelmed by her emotions that she
hurled herself to the ground.”[Joyce
Johnson, “Death Runs in the Family,” New York Magazine, Apr. 10, 1995, p. 58]

She told her that she had had her fortune read, and that in
the course of one week, and within the period of the ensuing six weeks, three
funerals would go from her door. She did not delay her destined purpose,
however, until the six weeks of the fortune-teller had expired; for in about a
month afterwards she went to the shop of a chymist, and purchased an ounce and
a half of arsenic, to fulfil the prophecy. [archaic spelling in orig.]

The motives of the murderess remain a mystery, but it is
stated that a fortune-teller once informed her that she was destined to have
six husbands before attaining happiness with the seventh. It is suggested that
the woman shared the superstition common in East Prussia, and got rid of her
husbands to fulfil the prophecy.

In 1659, it was observed, at Rome, that many young married
women were left widows, and that many husbands died when they became
disagreeable to their wives. It was at length discovered that the mischief
proceeded from a society of young married women, whose president, a little old
woman, pretended to foretell future events, and who had often predicted, very
exactly, many deaths to persons who had cause to wish for them. The old lady’s
name was Hieronyina Spara. She was a Sicilian, and
had acquired the art from Toffania, at Palermo. She, her assistant and three
other women were hung.

Wikipedia: During her work as a fortune teller, she noticed
the similarities between her customers wishes about their future: almost all
wanted to have some one fall in love with them, that some one would die so that
they might inherit, or that their spouses would die, so that they might marry
some one else. Initially, she told her clients that their will would be true if
it was also the will of God. Then, she started to recommend to her clients some
action that would make their dreams come true. These actions were initially to
visit the church of some particular saint; eventually, she started to sell
amulets and recommend magical practices of various kinds. The bones of toads,
teeth of moles, Spanish flies, iron filings, human blood and mummy, or
the dust of human remains, were among the alleged ingredients of the love
powders concocted by La Voisin.

Finally, she started to sell aphrodisiacs to those who
wished for people to fall in love with them, and poison to those who wished for
some one to die. Her knowledge of poisons was not apparently so thorough as
that of less well-known sorcerers, or it would be difficult to account for Louise
de La Vallière's immunity. The art of poisoning had become a regular science at
the time, having been perfected, in part, by Giulia Tofana, a professional
female poisoner in Italy, only a few decades before La Voisin.

She arranged black masses, where the clients could pray to
the Devil to make their wishes come true. During at least some of these masses,
a woman performed as an altar, upon which a bowl was placed: a baby was held
above the bowl, and the blood from it was poured into the bowl. She had a large
network of colleagues and assistants, among them Adam Lesage, who performed
allegedly magical tasks; the priests Étienne Guibourg and abbé Mariotte, who
officiated at the black masses; and poisoners like Catherine Trianon.

In the meantime, Gottfried’s proposals were not forthcoming;
and, believing him to be withheld by the objections
her parents made to the match, on the one hand, and by
the consideration of her having a family of children on the other, she thought
it was time to remove these obstacles out of his way. She said that her
resolution, with respect to her parents, had been fortified by the pious and frequently-expressed wishes of the old people, that
neither might long survive the other. She also consulted several other
fortune-tellers, who all predicted the mortality that was to ensue amongst her
connexions. She made no secret of this prophecy, but, on the contrary,
frequently lamented that she knew she was doomed to lose her children and all her relations. She always concluded these
communications by pious ejaculations, expressing a most perfect resignation to the will of Providence. "God's will be
done! The ways of the Lord are inscrutable, and we must bow to His decrees," &c. [Catherine
Crowe, Light and Darkness: or, The Mysteries of Life, Part I - The Poisoners
(pp. 23-136), 1850,
London: Henry Colburn, Publisher]

She [Van der Linden, or, Swanenberg] went the length of
marking down her victims beforehand. “It will be your turn in a month,” she
openly told one man, who had been bemoaning the sudden death of a relative. The
month passed, and this man was carried to his grave.

“Testimony showed that Annie Freeman was stricken with
pneumonia in her home in South Boston. She was gradually improving, but took a
turn for the worse after Mrs. Robinson fired her nurse and took sole charge of
her sister’s health. Mrs. Robinson had a premonition that her sister would
never recover, and, sure enough, Annie died soon after. She convinced Prince
Freeman to move his family to her home in Cambridge and few weeks later,
one-year-old Elisabeth Freeman died. Mrs. Robinson had another premonition; her
dead husband appeared and told her that Prince would soon die. This premonition
came true as well.” [“The Massachusetts Borgia,” Murder by Gaslight, online,
Mar. 2, 2013]

The fact is that the men were murdered by their own wives or
sweet hearts. The instigator of all these heinous crimes is Nikola Bettuz, the
seer of the town, who sold the subtle poison with which the murders were
committed.

While chemical experts
are testing bodies of her dead family to prove that they were poisoned with
arsenic, Mrs. Lindloff sits serenely studying the events which, she says, the
crystal reveals to her. "I can see my family arising to defend me against
this cruel charge." She said yesterday. "From the spirit world they
come in filmy forms to stand beside me and protect me from my enemies."

The original theory of the police in arresting Mrs. Lindloff
was that she committed the murders in order to collect insurance on the
victims’ lives. Captain Baer, as the result of the disclosures he says were
made yesterday, modifies this by the declaration that vanity contributed to
urge the woman to her crimes. He asserts that she deliberately planned her
poisonings so as to fit in with her predictions as a seeress and that she
killed her victims on a schedule which she made up at her clarvoyant séances.

“The precious material in the ball makes it so valuable,”
she tells the police. “I wouldn’t willingly part with it for many times the
$500 it cost me. It contains a love teardrop shed by Cleopatra, the Egyptian
Queen. That one drop permits me to read the past and the future. When I gaze
into the ball the teardrop expands, and before me I see what will happen in
future years. With it I could read and avoid the machinations of my enemies. I
place my hope on safety in it, and must have it.”

Since the exhumations of the revelations attending them,
persons have come forward with the the statement that several of the Lindloffs
died on the dates predicted for their deaths by Mrs. Lindloff as a seeress, and
this has led to the theory that she committed the murders to uphold her
reputation in her “profession.”

Summoned to Philadelphia, the bother-in-law told his story.
He told of the time when Frieda’s second baby was born, Frieda had said that
the spirits had told her that the baby would not live a week. And the next day
the baby died.

"Tillie Klimek (or Tillie Gburek) (born 1876-1936) was
an American serial killer. She poisoned in turn her husbands John Mitkiewicz,
John Ruskowski, Frank Kupszcyk, Joseph Guszkowski, and Anton Klimek, as well as
three neighborhood children and others. She became known as a fortune-teller,
for predicting their deaths in advance. She also had sex with all of them
before she killed them." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillie_Klimek

Mary, he said, visited his home so frequently at one time
that he protested to his wife. She answered, Young said:

“Oh, that’s all right. I just told her fortune,”

“What was it?” Young said he then asked and his wife
replied:

“Well, she’s having a lot of trouble with her husband, so I
told her to insure him and he would die in three months.”

Trial of the two women lasted two weeks and was featured by
the testimony of Mrs. Gizella Young, an alleged fortune teller, that the women
came to her for “card readings” as to when the two boys would die. The
defendants built their case around a claim that anything they had done was done
while under Mrs. Young’s “spell.”

The women claimed
they went to a fortune teller, Mrs. Gazella Young, who immediately put a magic
spell on them. They said she would lay out her magic cards, brought from
Czecho-slovakia, and predict death for members of their families. Then, they
said, she would advise them to take out large insurance policies on their
husbands, children and cousins and even go so far as to send insurance men to
their homes.

Neighbors of Mrs. Nason ascribe to her remarkable powers in
the way of prophesying fires. Her house on Grove street, it is said, was burned
in accordance with her prediction about three years age. Subsequently she had
another fiery vision. This alarmed another family in the same block and a
watchman was employed. But the second fire occurred on scheduled time, though
not until Mrs. Nason had been notified by the owners of the property to vacate.
The popular impression is that Mrs. Nason is afflicted with a most dangerous
and insidious form of insanity and that all the results of her secret work are
not yet known.

During the 1780s, Marty Bateman became a minor thief and con
artist who often convinced many of her victims she possessed supernatural
powers. They called her the “Yorkshire Witch.” By the end of the century, she
had become a prominent fortuneteller in Leeds who prescribed potions which she
claimed would ward off evil spirits as well as acting as medicine. [Wikipedia]

EXCERPT: The fortune-teller, Fanny Lambert, had aided the
wives in procuring the poison, and was even charged by the woman Ville with having
first instigated her to the crime. The man Joye added the profession of
fortune-teller to his trade of herb-seller, and two witnesses who had consulted
him as such declared that he had first suggested to them that they were unhappy
in their married life, and then offered his services to rid them of their
husbands. His method was first to propose supernatural means, and then
gradually accustom them to the idea of employing poison. One woman he had
instructed to procure a nail from a coffin in a certain cemetery, and to plant
it in the ground while pronouncing the name of her husband; he then added,
“After that come to me and I will give you something that will do the rest.”
The substance which he usually employed was arsenic, of which a large quantity was
found concealed in his shop.

“Kate was the most outgoing of the Benders, and advertised
herself as a fortune teller and healer. It was rumored that she and her mother
practiced witchcraft. Kate was attractive, and her psychic abilities drew extra
customers to the inn, when she wasn't traveling to give lectures on
Spiritualism and holding healing services.” [Miss Centania, “The Bloody
Benders, America's First Serial Killers, Mantal Floss, Nov. 14, 2013]

It is stated that no fewer than 80 women of the Servo-Magyar
village of Melencie are accused of having poisoned their husbands and other
near relatives, and that they procured the deleterious stuff from two
professional fortune-tellers, Sophia Ivanovitch and Anna Minity, who drove a
regular trade in noxious drugs, and earned considerable sums of money thereby.

She settled down as a clairvoyant at Perm. She had a huge
clientele of women, many of whom mysteriously disappeared. The crimes were
undetected till Permiakova called at a solicitor's house and told his beautiful
daughter her future. She ordered the girl to bare her neck to see if she had a
lucky mark and then murdered her with a hatchet. The police found in the
woman's flat ten bloodstained hatchets. Thirteen other accomplices received
long sentences.

1941 – Leonarda Cianciulli – Correggio, Reggio Emilia, ItalyMrs. Cianciulli claimed the power to
foretell the future, to hypnotise people, and police believe that her three known victims were so influenced by her as a clairvoyant that she
was able to lure them to her neatly kept house, where she murdered them and cut each of
their bodies into nine separate sections.